The Myth Of The Paperless Office

Author : Abigail J. Sellen
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262250497
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Myth of the Paperless Office written by Abigail J. Sellen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-02-28 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of why paper continues to fill our offices and a proposal for better coordination of the paper and digital worlds. Over the past thirty years, many people have proclaimed the imminent arrival of the paperless office. Yet even the World Wide Web, which allows almost any computer to read and display another computer's documents, has increased the amount of printing done. The use of e-mail in an organization causes an average 40 percent increase in paper consumption. In The Myth of the Paperless Office, Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper use the study of paper as a way to understand the work that people do and the reasons they do it the way they do. Using the tools of ethnography and cognitive psychology, they look at paper use from the level of the individual up to that of organizational culture. Central to Sellen and Harper's investigation is the concept of "affordances"—the activities that an object allows, or affords. The physical properties of paper (its being thin, light, porous, opaque, and flexible) afford the human actions of grasping, carrying, folding, writing, and so on. The concept of affordance allows them to compare the affordances of paper with those of existing digital devices. They can then ask what kinds of devices or systems would make new kinds of activities possible or better support current activities. The authors argue that paper will continue to play an important role in office life. Rather than pursue the ideal of the paperless office, we should work toward a future in which paper and electronic document tools work in concert and organizational processes make optimal use of both.

Author : David Weinberger
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0786730455
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Small Pieces Loosely Joined written by David Weinberger and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-11-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Web has not been hyped enough. That's the startling thesis of this one-of-a-kind book that's sure to become a classic work of social commentary. Just as Marshall McLuhan forever altered our view of broadcast media, Weinberger shows that the new medium of the Web is not only altering social institutions such as business and government but, more important, is transforming bedrock concepts of our culture such as space, time, the public, and even reality itself. Weinberger introduces us to denizens of this new world, among them Zannah, whose online diary turns self-revelation into play; Tim Bray, whose map of the Web reveals what's at the heart of the new Web space; and Danny Yee and Claudiu Popa, part of the new breed of Web experts we trust despite their lack of qualifications. Through stories of life on the Web, an insightful take on some familiar (and some unfamiliar) Web sites, and a wicked sense of humor, Weinberger puts the Web into the social and intellectual context we need to begin assessing its true impact on our lives. The irony, according to Weinberger, is that this new technology is more in tune with our authentic selves than is the modern world. Funny, provocative, and ultimately hopeful, Small Pieces Loosely Joined makes us look at the Web -- and at life -- in a new light. From Small Pieces Loosely Joined: The Web has sent a jolt through our culture, zapping our economy, our ideas about the sharing of creative works, and possibly even institutions such as religion and government. Why? How do we explain the lightning charge of the Web? If it has fallen short of our initial hopes and fears about its transformational powers, why did it excite those hopes and fears in the first place? Why did this technology hit our culture like a bolt from Zeus? Suppose -- just suppose -- that the Web is a new world we're just beginning to inhabit . . . If the Web is changing bedrock concepts such as space, matter, time, perfection, public, knowledge, and morality -- each a chapter of this book -- no wonder we're so damn confused. That's as it should be. The Web is enabling us to rediscover what we've always known about being human: we are connected creatures in a connected world about which we care passionately . . . If this is true, then for all of the over-heated, exaggerated, manic-depressive coverage of the Web, we'd have to conclude that the Web in fact has not been hyped enough.

Author : Barbara Hemphill
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780938721581
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Taming the Paper Tiger at Work written by Barbara Hemphill and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people have an area they'd like to get "more organized." At work, it could be a desk buried in phone messages, memos and work-in-process, overstuffed file cabinets or indecipherable computer files. At home, maybe it's a dining room table laden with bills and receipts, a pile of articles waiting to be read or photographs that need labeling. No matter what the situation, Barbara Hemphill has the practical solution to help control these "Paper Tigers."For twenty years, Hemphill, America's leading professional organizer, has shown people how to create sensible, workable paper-management systems. In these two books, she presents her "F-A-T" system ("File, " "Act, " "Toss"), which helps readers determine what needs keeping. Then she shows how to develop easy-access filing systems for those items.And because the "paperless office" never arrived, Hemphill also thoroughly covers organization for the computer and details how best to use it and paper systems together. Her practical tips turn even the mos cluttered spaces into places where "To-Do" lists actually get done!

Author : Ofer Bergman
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262336286
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Science of Managing Our Digital Stuff written by Ofer Bergman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-11-04 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why we organize our personal digital data the way we do and how design of new PIM systems can help us manage our information more efficiently. Each of us has an ever-growing collection of personal digital data: documents, photographs, PowerPoint presentations, videos, music, emails and texts sent and received. To access any of this, we have to find it. The ease (or difficulty) of finding something depends on how we organize our digital stuff. In this book, personal information management (PIM) experts Ofer Bergman and Steve Whittaker explain why we organize our personal digital data the way we do and how the design of new PIM systems can help us manage our collections more efficiently. Bergman and Whittaker report that many of us use hierarchical folders for our personal digital organizing. Critics of this method point out that information is hidden from sight in folders that are often within other folders so that we have to remember the exact location of information to access it. Because of this, information scientists suggest other methods: search, more flexible than navigating folders; tags, which allow multiple categorizations; and group information management. Yet Bergman and Whittaker have found in their pioneering PIM research that these other methods that work best for public information management don't work as well for personal information management. Bergman and Whittaker describe personal information collection as curation: we preserve and organize this data to ensure our future access to it. Unlike other information management fields, in PIM the same user organizes and retrieves the information. After explaining the cognitive and psychological reasons that so many prefer folders, Bergman and Whittaker propose the user-subjective approach to PIM, which does not replace folder hierarchies but exploits these unique characteristics of PIM.

Author : Sherry Turkle
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 1594205558
Total Pages : 450 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reclaiming Conversation written by Sherry Turkle and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging look at how technology is undermining our creativity and relationships and how face-to-face conversation can help us get it back.

Author : Robert Barrett
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780900458408
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Paperless office - myth or reality? written by Robert Barrett and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Richard H. R. Harper
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262288656
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Texture written by Richard H. R. Harper and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-09-21 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why we complain about communication overload even as we seek new ways to communicate. Our workdays are so filled with emails, instant messaging, and RSS feeds that we complain that there's not enough time to get our actual work done. At home, we are besieged by telephone calls on landlines and cell phones, the beeps that signal text messages, and work emails on our BlackBerrys. It's too much, we cry (or type) as we update our Facebook pages, compose a blog post, or check to see what Shaquille O'Neal has to say on Twitter. In Texture, Richard Harper asks why we seek out new ways of communicating even as we complain about communication overload. Harper describes the mistaken assumptions of developers that “more” is always better and argues that users prefer simpler technologies that allow them to create social bonds. Communication is not just the exchange of information. There is a texture to our communicative practices, manifest in the different means we choose to communicate (quick or slow, permanent or ephemeral).

Author : Ben Kafka
Publisher : Zone Books
ISBN 13 : 194213035X
Total Pages : 185 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Demon of Writing written by Ben Kafka and published by Zone Books. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history and theory of the powers, the failures, and even the pleasures of paperwork. Since the middle of the eighteenth century, political thinkers of all kinds—radical and reactionary, professional and amateur—have been complaining about “bureaucracy.” But what, exactly, are they complaining about? In The Demon of Writing, Ben Kafka offers a critical history and theory of one of the most ubiquitous, least understood forms of media: paperwork. States rely on records to tax and spend, protect and serve, discipline and punish. But time and again, this paperwork proves to be unreliable. Examining episodes that range from the story of a clerk who lost his job and then his mind in the French Revolution to an account of Roland Barthes's brief stint as a university administrator, Kafka reveals the powers, the failures, and even the pleasures of paperwork. Many of its complexities, he argues, have been obscured by the comic-paranoid style that characterizes much of our criticism of bureaucracy. Kafka proposes a new theory of what Karl Marx called the “bureaucratic medium.” Moving from Marx to Freud, he argues that this theory of paperwork must include both a theory of praxis and of parapraxis.

Author : Richard Polt
Publisher : The Countryman Press
ISBN 13 : 1581575874
Total Pages : 641 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist's Companion for the 21st Century written by Richard Polt and published by The Countryman Press. This book was released on 2015-11-12 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The connoisseur's guide to the typewriter, entertaining and practical What do thousands of kids, makers, poets, artists, steampunks, hipsters, activists, and musicians have in common? They love typewriters—the magical, mechanical contraptions that are enjoying a surprising second life in the 21st century, striking a blow for self-reliance, privacy, and coherence against dependency, surveillance, and disintegration. The Typewriter Revolution documents the movement and provides practical advice on how to choose a typewriter, how to care for it, and what to do with it—from National Novel Writing Month to letter-writing socials, from type-ins to typewritten blogs, from custom-painted typewriters to typewriter tattoos. It celebrates the unique quality of everything typewriter, fully-illustrated with vintage photographs, postcards, manuals, and more.

Author : Christian Dörner
Publisher : BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN 13 : 3899369475
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Tailoring Software Infrastructures written by Christian Dörner and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2010-07 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's non-tayloristic work environments call for flexible work practices supported by dynamic IT systems. Changing and optimising business processes has become an important 'adaptation mechanism' in this context. However, process models cannot capture every conceivable real-life situation, and firms' software infrastructures often do not provide the flexibility required for supporting 'design-in-use' through effective tailoring processes. The involvement of business users in the continuous redesign of business processes is a beneficial solution for these problems, as it enhances decision processes by making specific information available more quickly. However, involving business users in these redesign processes requires specific design tools. This book presents the development of an environment that enables business users to independently model business processes and workflows. The environment reduces the technical skills required for modelling business processes and workflows to enable business users to tailor heterogeneous software infrastructures. It also provides improved documentation facilities. The facilities add usage-related information about Web services to the existing functional metadata, which is already included in current Web service standards and workflow modelling tools. The environment enables business users to create this usage-related information cooperatively, which leads to a domain-specific documentation of Web services. Based on this information, it provides an enhanced search system that identifies related services and service functions. The evaluation of the environment showed that users had a positive perception of modelling business processes and workflows. They considered this to be useful for the visualisation and automation of business processes as well as for the creation of calculations since it could enhance the efficiency and efficacy of their work.